For the better part of 15 years, Ron Doney and Michael Allard had been perched high atop Paris Mountain in a home they loved, with a bathroom they hated.
Doney referred to it as a very formal lady bathroom with a soaking tub and gold everything. Next door there was an additional bathroom with a shower and closet. “We finally said, this is dumb, we need a fabulous bathroom. It needs to be a big bathroom and it doesn’t need to be broken up like this.”
Doney and Allard turned to Tindall Architecture Workshop to design their ideal bathroom, little knowing their fabulous aspirations would spill over into every room of the home. The his and hers bathrooms were situated across the hall from a master bedroom that they used as an office. Their Texas-sized bed (a holdover from their days in Dallas) had been relocated to a larger bonus room at the end of the hall.
“Basically this whole side of the hallway was the problem child,” says architect Matt Tindall. “What really allowed us to open this up for different and better things was when we decided this was more than a bathroom renovation.”
The solution: configure a proper master suite for the house.
From the large, unwieldy bonus room, Tindall carved out a jaw-dropping bath and closet, as well as an intimate bedroom that fully capitalizes on the view by pushing the bed — which he also built — right up to floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. “Their closet, like most now, is where everything lives,” Tindall says. “There’s no furniture in bedrooms anymore except beds and nightstands, so we took advantage of that here.”
Once the decision was made to rework this section of the home, the conversation snowballed into a much bigger project. “It turned out to be the entire house,” Tindall says.
Cynthia Masters and her interior design team at Panageries, Inc., were brought in to help strike a balance between the homeowners’ modern sensibilities and their desire for a highly livable and welcoming home. “This house is all about the architecture; the interior design was subordinate to that,” Masters says. “Anything we did had to be very subtle, very simple, not a lot of different materials or colors, so that the architecture really takes center stage.”
A single paint color is used throughout the entire house. All the cabinetry wears the same warm honey tone, the wood floors are just a shade deeper and the same thick white Cambria countertops grace the kitchen, wine room and guest baths with simple sophistication.
Color is splashed in sparingly, in a palette of oranges, rusts, yellows and greens, based on the large scale art Doney and Allard collect. “Instead of buying little knickknacks when we travel, we generally try to get an art piece from somewhere that stays with us as a memory of the trip,” Doney says.
The design plan showcases these beloved works and affords the couple lots of wallspace to add to their collection. The refined interior also allows the bird’s eye view of Greenville to take its rightful place in the experience of the home. Tindall remembers first seeing the view and feeling it was undervalued in the home’s original design. “The view was here, but it wasn’t present in the house at all,” he says.
All the windows were replaced and resituated as part of the project. And, to take advantage of the view up close more days of the year, the roof over the existing deck was cantilevered to create a shady sitting area. Lastly, while the home is awash in natural light throughout the day, it now glows at night thanks to a thoughtful lighting design by Kerry Penwell of Kasted.
These elements combine to create a warm welcome for all who enter here, which was paramount for Doney and Allard. Together they run Think Up Consulting, a Greenville-based brand strategy firm with employees around the country to whom they regularly play host. Between that and visiting family and friends, the home’s guest rooms are in heavy rotation. “We run about 80% occupancy,” Doney says, only half joking. With this in mind, Masters opted for built-in cabinets and shelving in lieu of traditional closets in the three guest rooms.
“Their house is almost like a B&B,” Masters says. “So instead of closets we thought it would be better to have it more like a hotel room, where you have a place to put your luggage and a place to hang your things.”
Penwell was also instrumental in helping to develop smart home solutions. Bathrooms, for instance, have windows that create one way privacy at a push of a button allowing guests to shower with open views from the mountaintop. And, when Masters planned for the sunken living room to be free from the visual distraction of the television, Penwell worked with Tindall to create mechanics to hide it in the ceiling when not in use.
“I really think there are very few things that any one person can take credit for in this house,” Tindall says. “It was a huge team effort.”
by Allison Walsh / photography by Carter Tippins
